


there are no victors here

by dropofrum (95echelon)



Series: dropofrum sampler [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, margaery is the only queen i'll ever need, off-screen violence, or the one in which i EARN. MY. RATING., this is gonna be 5k of me crying about how blue Robb Stark's eyes are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-01-03 23:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12156675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/95echelon/pseuds/dropofrum
Summary: One crown is so much like any other, after all; and in the North, Robb Stark stands undefeated.Don't fall in love,Grandmother had said,for love makes murderers of good men, and martyrs of good women; and I have too many plans for you, my dear, to find you dead over some idiot boy.But Margaery hadn't listened, and that's where the story really begins.





	1. did you lose what won't return?

**Author's Note:**

> this fic hasn't been beta-read, and boy, is that gonna be obvious about four sentences into the first chapter.

#####  _"When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die."_

#####  _\- JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, The Devil and the Good Lord_

 

* * *

**Epilogue**

They kiss like they're dying, in the pouring rain. The water washes the blood of dead men off his face, and when their mouths clash, furious and desperate and slick, they taste it on each others' lips, all their blood, coppery and metallic, rushing and fierce.

 _This,_ Margaery thinks, digging her nails into the back of his neck, sinking her teeth into his lips, blood on her lips, blood on her mind, as he groans into her mouth, _this is what it feels like to kiss a King._

 

* * *

**Prologue**

The first lesson Grandmother had taught Margaery had been this - _Don't fall in love._

Margaery had thought, at the time, all of seven years old and too brash for her own good, that the lesson was unnecessary. Superfluous. Grandmother and Loras were the only people Margaery had ever loved. Would ever love.

 _Don't fall in love,_ Grandmother had said, and Margaery hadn't listened, _for love makes murderers of good men, and martyrs of good women; and I have too many plans for you, my dear, to find you dead over some idiot boy._

Margaery should've listened, she thinks now, wretchedly. Robb Stark's eyes are bluer than the summer skies of Highgarden, his smile sweeter than a man of nine-and-ten has any right to be, with blood still smeared across his armor, dirt and sweat streaking down his face. His skin is hotter than a forest fire, and Margaery's heart is up in her throat, choking away her breath.

She rises on her toes to kiss him again, and thinks, _I should've listened to you, Grandmother. I should've listened._

* * *

 

 

**I.**

It starts with Catelyn and Petyr.

That is perhaps the strangest part of this story - although most things start with Petyr. It is what he does, start fires and topple empires, and yearn for things he cannot have.

In some ways, Petyr is still very, very young.

"I have _loved_ you," Petyr rasps, the confession wrenched from his throat, "since I was a boy."

"Love," Catelyn repeats, laughter coloring her words, hysterical and bleak. "What am I to do with love? Love for Lyanna killed my betrothed. Love for Robert killed my husband. Love for Balon Greyjoy killed my boys."

She turned to him, eyes blazing hotter the fire. " ** _Damn_** love," she spat. “My son is out there, fighting a _war._ My daughters are imprisoned by the mad queen. Do you know what I need, Petyr? I need swords. I need men and horses and steel, and enough gold to feed them. Give me that," she cursed at him, so close their breath mingled, warm and quick, "and _then_ tell me you love me. Maybe I'll believe you."

* * *

 

Petyr was very young, in many ways, but Aegon the Conqueror had been only six-and-ten when he took Westeros. It was young men who had built this empire, and Petyr was a young man in love.

* * *

 

 

**II.**

“We need to go _home_ ," Margaery pleads, but Loras, hunched over Renly's cold body, he hears none of this.

“My lord," Petyr breathes, soft and pleading, dashing into their tent, "my lady. Stannis' fleet will be here in an hour. Renly's bannermen will flock to his cause - they'll fall over themselves for the privilege of selling you to their new king."

Loras snarls, drawing his sword, and striding the Petyr, until the point of the blade is inches from his throat. Petyr swallows, and does not breathe.

“And you want the privilege, for yourself," Loras hisses, "is that it?"

There are three men," Petyr remarks quietly, "who benefit from renly's death. Three kings. Joffrey, Stannis, and Robb Stark. You will note, that only one of them sent you an envoy. I am here, to _help_ -"

“There's no _time_ for this," Margaery cuts in, shoving her stupid, lovesick brother, and his stupid, dangerous sword away from their most clever ally. “We need to go back to Highgarden!"

We need to speak with grandmother. We need to _plan._

But it is only Margaery who has ever recognized Lady Olenna's true talents - cunning and cleverness were never Loras' strengths, and he did not value them in others.

“Run back home, sister," Loras sneers, fire and fury flashing in his eyes, and Margaery could _slap_ him, for how stupid he's being, for how _easily_ he's being managed by Littlefinger. "I'm going to avenge him, if it's the last thing I do."

“Brienne of Tarth murdered Renly," Margaery tries, and the lie tastes foul when she speaks it to her own brother.

"I don't believe that," he retorts, eyes slipping back to renly's grey face. “ _You_ don't believe that." He pauses, breathing hard, sword arm dropping to his side, naked pain scrawled all across his delicate, handsome face. “Who benefits the most from renly's death?"

Petyr smiles. "Joffrey," he replies, setting the trap as easily as breathing. “His father is not Robert Baratheon, unfortunately. Ned Stark died, for discovering that truth."

And he changes the course of a war.

Love makes murderers of good men, yes, and Petyr Baelish has not been a good man in a long, long time.

* * *

 

When Catelyn arrives at Robb's camp, Brienne of Tarth's vow sitting heavy on her breast, Petyr is waiting for her. Petyr and Ser Loras, and Margaery Tyrell.

In the command tent behind them, Lady Olenna pours Greatjon Umber a fresh cup of wine, and blithely calls his first wife a fatheaded whore, and the tent roars with the Northmen's laughter.

* * *

 

"Steel and men and horses," Petyr murmurs, late after dinner, as they sit by the camp's bonfire, the raucous sounds of soldiers, northern and southron, swapping stories and flagons of ale fills the air. “And enough gold to feed them all. Someday you'll believe me, Cat."

He walks away before she can reply. It is the first someone has called her Cat, since the night Ned left for the capital, and Catelyn has never felt quite so _alone_.

* * *

 

 

**III.**

_Ride ahead_ , Olenna tells her in a scroll from Highgarden. _Meet this boy before he knows your name. The true measure of a man lies in how he treats strangers, not allies._

Margaery rides ahead. She reaches the battlefield at Oxcross before anyone else.

* * *

 

 _"Please, please, mum,"_ the soldier's begging incoherently, red-faced and bloody, snot trailing into his open mouth as the medic and the silent sister hold him down. "Please mum, I need me leg."

“The rot's set in," the medic informs him, sharply. “We need to cut it off before it reaches your heart."

The meadow stinks, blood, harsh and metallic, and the foul, putrid stench of bowels released after death.

 _Honor,_ Margaery thinks, lips thinning, the screams of the dying carried on the cold, wintry wind. _Honor and glory. This is what men die for. This is what death looks like._

She slides off her horse in a single, fluid motion, striding through the mud and muck, her groomsman trailing behind her, pleading, “Come back milady! please! Oh, milady, your dress!"

"I have other dresses", Margaery replies quietly.  _‘This man has only one life,'_ she thinks, but she doesn't say it out loud, as she sinks to her knees in the dewy grass, cradling the soldier's head in her lap, and tugging the wooden comb from her hair, not a wince on her face when it pulls long brown strands of hair from her scalp.

“My lady?" the medic asks, eyebrows flying up, and Margaery notes the low, clear accent, highborn and educated, the way her eyes are sparkling with something like amusement. she ignores her, and holds the comb to the boy's mouth.

“Bite down," she commands.

“No, no," the soldier's moaning, thrashing, eyes screwed shut, and Margaery hates this, she _hates_ it, _hates_ the fear thrumming in her chest, the tightness of every breath, the stench of death all around her. but she has done this before, when Willas-

 _Well_. She has done this before. She knows what is required of her.

She grits her teeth, and clamps down an arm across his shoulders, shoving the comb between his teeth.

“Bite", she repeats harshly, holding him down with all her strength. “Or you'll end up biting your tongue off. "

“My lady?" a new voice is saying above her, the soldier casting his shadow across them all, but she can't look up yet, not yet, and when the medic has removed the infected limb, it's all she can do, to relax her arm, and suck in deep, shuddering breaths and pretend the warm splatter on her face is mist, and not blood. The medic thanks her, and Margaery barely hears it over the roar of her own heart, nodding curtly, closing her eyes, and turning her face to the weak, wintry sun.

“Are you alright?" the soldier from before asks. he hadn't left, not the whole time they'd been performing the procedure.

"I'm fine," she mutters, but when he loops an arm around her waist to help her up, she allows it to happen.

“Who _are_ you?" he asks, wondering, his consonants softened by a northern burr, his deep voice rumbling through her exhausted bones.

She sighs, quietly, before tugging herself away from his hold, gesturing her thoroughly distraught groom to follow.

“It doesn't matter," she replies, under her breath, but she thinks the man hears her anyway.

And though she doesn't turn around, she feels the weight of his gaze on her for long, tumultuous minutes, until she rides out of sight again.

* * *

 

 

**IV.**

“Who will be King, then?” Robb asks. “If not Joffrey, will the Tyrells support Stannis’ claim?”

“Loras wants his head on pike too, your grace” Petyr replies apologetically, affecting a delicate shrug. “Headless men make poor kings.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Robb mutters dryly, although his eyes are fixed on the map of Westeros, unfurled across his table, golden and vast under the light of the braziers crackling in his tent. “Robert barely had a head, and he ruled well enough for a decade and a half.”

* * *

 

“Who will be King, then?” Lady Olenna asks Margaery, when they are ensconced in her tent, and surrounded by Tyrell loyals, and even then, only once the soldiers’ revels have reached pitch.

Loyalty is good, but secrecy is better.

“Not Stannis,” Margaery reports, draped tiredly across Grandmother’s divan. “Not with how Renly despised him. Not Joffrey either, not with how Loras wants him dead _._ And certainly not Stark - he wants nothing to do with the South, except rescue his sisters and secure his borders.”

“Shame,” Olenna comments, popping a dark, wine grape into her mouth, chewing meditatively. "He would have made a fine King.”

Margaery cocks her head to the side, watching Grandmother curiously, before her mouth drops open. “You _like_ him,” she gasps, accusing.

Olenna chuckles. “So,” she declares. “We don’t have a King. What now?”

“The war isn’t over yet, Grandmother, and anyway, it doesn’t matter who is king. I shall be Queen.”

Olenna Redwyne smiles then, truly smiles, crinkling her small eyes, twinkling and proud. “Yes,” she agrees, softly. “You will.”

* * *

 

 

**V.**

“You,” says that voice, and Margaery turns around hesitantly, heart in her throat. “You’re the girl from the field."

He’s… _beautiful._ Strapping, and dark, and blue-eyed; Robb Stark looks every inch the King. The beast they’ve all been talking about, the wolf he’s said to ride into battle, is by his side, padding forward on silent feet, until his snout is a breath away from her stomach, and Margaery doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, barely even breathes. His dark, cloying breath falls against her belly in quick, sharp pants, humid and wet even through the layers of her gown.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters. “Come ‘ere, you idiot, she’s not an assassin,” and the wolf turns away, returning to Robb Stark’s side, quiet as a ghost.

“You never told me your name,” he says, so soft that she nearly misses the words, all her attention focused on the monster this man calls a _pet._ Are all Northmen this idiotic?

It takes every lesson Olenna has ever drilled into her since birth, to force her gaze back to Stark, to smile as gracious as any lady, and dip a little curtsey that pushes the swell of her breasts higher, emphasizes the neat tuck of her waist. “Your grace,” she murmurs, letting a smile flash, and she watches the light in his eyes dim, the soft, full line of his lips harden in displeasure. What is _wrong_ with this man? He liked her well enough when she was muddy and sweaty, he liked her even when she was a stranger who’d found her way to his tent, and now that she’s turned out to be as highborn as him, he’s... what? _Disappointed?_ Ridiculous.

“Margaery, of House Tyrell,” she forges on, and his expression could’ve been carved from stone, for all the emotion it betrays. He is still, and quiet, and to Margaery, quietly furious, except for the hand that has tightened in the direwolf's ruff, a steady, warning growl rising from its monstrous throat. "I’m here to discuss terms of alliance."

* * *

 

“We were Seven Kingdoms, once. We bowed only when the dragons came to Westeros. But the dragons are dead. The last Targaryen is half a world away.”

“Independence. You’re talking about independence.”

“Yes. You hold the North and the Riverlands. Lady Stark’s sister holds the Vale. The Martells hold Dorne, and they have _very_ little love for the Lannisters. That leaves-”

“The Crownlands, the Westerlands, both held by Tywin. The Stormlands, held nominally by Stannis. And you... you would rule the Reach, then?”

“My _father_ would rule from Highgarden, your grace. _Loras_ would be heir.”

He mouths Loras’ name, silently, a mocking tilt to his full lips. “Yes,” he finally murmurs. "And you’d be princess of the Reach.”

Margaery smiles, a feline quirk of her lips, and Robb Stark’s eyes flicker to her mouth, watching her mouth when she replies, “Yes.” His gaze is bold, and she fights the urge to press her fingers to her lips, to shield herself from the heat of him. "Do we have an accord, your grace?”

He smiles back too, then, meeting her gaze, but his blue eyes are colder than ice, and his smile is a harsh, cutting thing. “Aye, princess,” he says. "We do."

* * *

 

 

**VI.**

Meanwhile, Loras and Petyr Baelish ride for Harrenhal, Olenna accompanying the campaign, where the Mountain holds the burned fort, manned by an army of Lannister redcloaks, at the very heart of Riverrun.

Stark is routing the Westerlands, and there is too much danger of Lannister loyalists defecting to save Jaime, in the heart of his Father’s kingdom. They take the Kingslayer with them.

* * *

 

They win.

Again and again and again, they win.

They take the Westerlands by storm, after the victory at Oxcross, Jaime Lannister caged and cowed. The army of Stark, Tully and Tyrell is tens of thousands strong, and the Westerlands are poorly defended, with Tywin Lannister’s having redirected the bulk of his forces to the Crownlands and the Trident. They fall in rapid succession - Ashemark, and Yellow Fork, and the Crag. After each battle, though, Talisa Maegyr and Margaery Tyrell walk through the fields of the dead administering aid - splinting bones, and cleaning blood, and patching wounds. And each time, Robb Stark watches her hard-eyed, grim and cold, his knuckles white around the hilt of his sword.

The Northmen don’t approve of her work, either, and Margaery doesn’t know if it stems from mirroring their fearless commander, or from more ruthless pragmatism - after all, a living Lannister prisoner needed feeding and watering and watching, and the dead needed only the attention of crows. When they take Casterly Rock, however, and Margaery saves eleven of Tywin Lannister’s great, grand nephews and nieces, they don’t mind her work at all. Hostages are all a burden, but noble hostages can at least be ransomed.

And Sansa Stark is still affianced to Joffrey Baratheon.

They save enough men to lose count, between her and Talisa. But they lose many more, and so they begin to take a Mercy Woman to accompany them, and the ones they cannot save, she kills.

And if the dying aren’t too ravaged and bloody, Margaery asks them for their name. She forgets more names in those long, terrible, victorious months, than she remembers; but she remembers enough to wake up each night, screaming.

* * *

 

 

**VII.**

He’s hunched over the maps, when she ducks into the Lord’s chambers he’s taken up at Casterly Rock, armor and leathers discarded in a heap, clad in breeches and a loose tunic. There are candles burning over the table, and braziers aplenty. The moment she enters, a film of sweat collects on the back of her neck, and she drops her cloak to the side impatiently. The Northmen don’t care much for propriety - Margaery had never imagined she’d appreciate that particular tradition quite so much.

“What you did, today,” Stark mutters with ill-grace, never actually looking up at her, the loutish arse, “the children you saved… I’m in your debt, princess.”

Margaery smiles pleasantly, and dips a curtsey. “Thank you, your grace,” she replies, sweetly, as if her hair isn’t a fright, and her skirts aren’t streaked with dirt and rainwater and blood. “Is that all?”

His shoulders are limned in gold, and with the light coming from behind him, his face is shrouded in darkness. When he looks up at her, palms flat on the table, spine bowed, legs planted firmly apart, Margaery shivers for a second despite the heat. He looks like the monster they make him out to be in that moment, cold and ruthless, a wolf thirsting for its enemies' blood, wrought in the winds of winter.

Grey Wind pads silently to her side, burying his nose in her side, and Margaery runs a trembling hand through his warm, shaggy pelt, and forces herself to not look away. The direwolf may be his, but she knows it will keep her safe too.

“No,” he mutters, stepping past the table, and towards her. “I’m not done. You need to _**stop**_ doing this, this business of touring the bloody battlefields after every fight - you’ve _proved_ you’re a thrice-damned saint, alright? Seven hells, woman, what-“

Margaery slaps him.

 _“How dare you,”_ she hisses, a haze of red descending on her vision, vibrating with tension, as he gapes at her, open-mouthed. “How dare- You think _**that’s**_ why?! You think that’s why I go out there, night after night after _bloody_ night?!”

She’s breathing hard, now, heedless, and Olenna’s voice sounds very, very far away. “I _hear_ them,” she breathes, “every night, in my dreams, I hear them _begging_  and _pleading_ , and I wake up coughing blood from-“ She breaks away, shoving at his chest open-handed. “I lie awake, all night, staring up at the canopy, and I count their names, over and over and **_over_** -“

“Then _why_?” he asks, striding back to her, cradling her face in his hand. “ _Why_ , princess?”

“Because they’re all _dead_ ; they’re all _dead_ , and for nothing. Someone should _remember_ them.”

“Why _you_? Why does it all fall on _you_?”

“Why _not_ me?” she asks him, bewildered. “What makes _me_ so special?”

His thumb strokes her cheek, soot and rusty blood collecting under his skin, and he whispers, “You’re Margaery. You’re- You _are_.”

She gasps when he brushes the first kiss to her lips, and shudders when he presses the second. Her lips part under his, and her tongue darts to taste him, and then it’s madness, like fire under his skin, the drive to taste her, to touch her, to feel her come apart- He drags her body to him, his cock harder than steel, digging into her stomach, and Margaery whimpers when he licks her mouth open, biting down on her lower lip, hands restless shifting down her sides, down her back. He pulls her tighter, hands dropping to cup her lush arse, as she gasps, and stumbles back, eyes wide and black with lust, her fair skin pink and breathless with desire. She _wants_ him, she _does_ -

She closes her eyes, and steps away a little more, head bowed, and spine straight. “ _Don’t_ ,” she mutters, lowly. “We have promises to keep, Robb Stark. And this war is not done with either of us yet.”

When she leaves, as quietly as she came, Robb does not stop her.

* * *

  
  



	2. did you love but never learn?

**viii.**

Grey Wind has grown to like her. 

To his bannermen, to the Northmen, this alone is to her enormous credit - and even Robb can't deny the heat that crawls across his skin, warm at the back of his neck, fingers itching to touch... There is something about her, in her soft, pretty dresses, sprawled under an elm, Grey Wind lying across her thighs, a low contented rumble from his throat as she runs her fingers through his thick pelt. Her eyes are heavy, and the sound of her voice carries through the wind, the Southron song high and lilting when it reaches his ears.

There is a new roughness in her voice now, a low, rasping burr, and it slithers, dark and hot, down his spine. 

_"I wake up screaming-"_

Robb doesn't know the words, but he thinks he recognizes the cadence of the song - something old and familiar, something mother might have sung to him and Jon, back before she began to look at his half-brother with distrust and resentment in her eyes, stroking their hair until they fell asleep. 

Yes, it speaks well of her, that a direwolf is at ease around a Highgarden girl. But the only person who recognizes its true significance is Mother - and when she sees Margaery Tyrell sing to a Stark's direwolf, so thoroughly at ease in the middle of a battle camp, her mouth pinches into a narrow line, and she watches Robb with hard eyes. She knows this is Robb’s doing, to bring his bannermen to trust their new allies. She knows the bond her children have with their wolves.

 _You made a vow to Walder Frey,_ her cold eyes remind him. _When a Northerner makes a vow, when your_  Father _made a vow, it_ meant _something._

 _But we're not in the North anymore,_ Robb wants to spit back. _We're at_ war _, and father is_ dead, _and I could_ love _her, I might already-_

He says nothing; Margaery sings to Grey Wind, oblivious, and when Robb closes his eyes, and slips into his wolf's skin, he feels her cool hands stroke his pelt, and the pleasure of it goes beyond any word he could give.

Beyond any word he could keep. 

* * *

 

 

**ix.**

"What’s that smell?" Hot Pie had asked her, the day they arrived at Harrenhal.

"Dead people," Arya had replied, and fought back a savage smile. 

Arya liked death.  
Death meant something was about to happen. 

Sansa wouldn’t have liked it, she thought, a sharp pang in her chest that she forced away - but Arya did. Arya _liked_ death. Arya liked things _happening,_ and being imprisoned by _Lannister_ soldiers had been a vast, bleak stretch of _nothing._

She glanced up at Gendry, from the corner of her eye, the deep, dark blue of his eyes almost black in the sunken light of Harrenhal. Gendry didn’t know it yet, but he’d like it too. He _would_ , she knew he would. They were two of a kind, she and he.

Arya hid a smile, and when a Lannister soldier grabbed her by the scruff and shoved her forward, with a barked order of, _‘Move it along!’_ Arya barely even noticed.

Something was about to _happen,_ and Arya was prepared, Needle or not. 

Were they?

* * *

 

“That was my son,” the woman says, once the screaming has died away. Her hair is white, her eyes are cold. They bulge out of her face like a frog’s, watery and bloodshot, and when she speaks, her voice is a hoarse, tired crackle. “They took my sister three days ago. Yesterday, my husband.” 

“They take someone everyday?” Gendry asks, grim-faced, and his voice doesn’t shake, not at all. Sansa would call it courage, because Sansa was sweet and stupid and full of songs and romantic dreams. Arya knows it isn’t courage that keeps his voice steady; Arya knows it’s more than that. 

The woman nods.

“Does _anyone_ live?” Arya asks.

The woman does not turn around. She does not reply. And that is answer enough.

Arya doesn’t think she’ll live, if they choose her tomorrow. Arya knows she’ll die. 

Gendry doesn’t think he’ll live either, if he's chosen; Arya knows that much about him. He’s stupid, too, often enough, with all the ‘ _milady’ing_ he used to insist upon, before, but there’s more to him. More than most boys anyway.

Sometimes, right before she falls asleep, Gendry reminds her of Jon.

But she doesn’t think about that. She thinks about Joffrey instead, Joffrey and Cersei and Illyn Payne and the Hound. She anchors herself at the point where the small of her back presses into the bump of Gendry’s knee, the heat of his body leaching into the air between them, and lets herself be carried into her nightmares. 

It’s better that way. Easier.

* * *

 

 

**x.**

"Any word from the Iron Islands? About their ships?" 

Talisa's pretty mouth hardens into a fine line, and as they make their way through the camps, from the medic's tents to their own. She's up to her elbows in... something. Grime and dirt and soot, caked with blood. It's a filthy job - this business of saving lives, and Margaery wonders what it says about her and Talisa, that they so desperately depend on it to keep hold of their sanity in this mad man's war. 

"Not yet," she replies. 

"It's taken too long," Margaery concludes softly, unease fluttering anew in her gut. 

Talisa Maegyr inclines her neck in agreement, as they sink into shadow when they enter Casterly Rock, torchlight tracing flickering shadows upon their faces. Dinner will be served in a while, and Margaery's not even embarrassed at the soft rumble of her belly. It may be filthy work, saving lives and tending wounds, but it's work all the same. 

"You've met him," Margaery ventures. "Haven't you?"

"Lord Theon?" Talisa asks, and Margaery nods in confirmation. "Yes."

"What did you make of him?" she asks. 

Talisa pauses, hitching one shoulder in a half-shrug, and Margaery's stomach sinks at the hardness in her companion's eyes. "He is... A boy. He is smart, but not as smart as he thinks, and he is brave, braver than he knows. But..."

"Yes," Margaery says dryly, frantic to mask her growing despair. "I've met his kind." _My brother, for instance,_ she does not say. Her brother leads armies into war, and Margaery prays that she is wrong about Loras. "You don't have to tell me."

They share a wry, cynical smile, at all the men they've ever wanted to smack upside the head for sheer lack of sense, and continue their way down the corridor, leading to their assigned chambers. 

Lady Stark has taken the second-largest rooms, although she'd been entirely willing to cede them to one of the bannermen - as mother of the King, she is accorded every honour that can be afforded, in these times of war. 

But there are still bannermen to appease - from three kingdoms, and courtesies that must be maintained, and for pure sake of efficiency, Margaery had ordered that she would share rooms with Talisa and the other medics. 

Only later had she realized how it would look - a princess lending her space to common women; suddenly, the spark of anger that had flickered in Catelyn Stark's eyes made sense. Clearly, the Queen Mother thought Margaery was acting out some kind of farce for the sake of politics. 

Honestly, these Northerners... They'd be the death of her, one day. 

So lost is Margaery in her own musing - worries about why Theon Greyjoy still hasn't sent word of her lord father's decision, fear about how Loras and Littlefinger and that Bolton man plan to secure the Riverlands, agonizing about the young princess held captive by the Lannisters - that when Talisa speaks suddenly, Margaery almost gasps. 

"Don't you have a fleet?" she asks, out of the blue, and-

They do, the Redwynes do, the greatest naval fleet in Westeros. 

They have ships.   
They have _ships._

And suddenly, she can breathe again. 

She can't find Greyjoy and ring a peal over his head, and she can't scheme her way into saving her stupid, _stupid_ little brother - but Sansa Stark, and the capital... Yes. They are still some things she can take. 

Still some things she can save. 

* * *

 

"We can fight all we want," Lord Karstark is saying, and Robb barely can listen, over the roar of the dinner crowd. "But none of this ends until we take King's Landing. We need his reply _soon._ We need Greyjoy’s ships. All two hundred longships, all of them battle-tested-"

"And the Arbor has _three_ hundred warships." Robb and Karstark spin on their heels to face Margaery Tyrell, wearing a dark, sweeping cloak of lambswool over her thin summer gown, gone patchy with sweat, streaked heavily with dirt, clinging to her skin. The white muslin is practically transluscent where it drapes across her full bodice, and Robb's jaw flexes angrily, darting down before meeting her eyes.

No wonder bloody Karstark’s been in such _dire_ need of a nurse all week, the filthy old goat.

She arches a brow at him, before turning back to his bannerman, patiently letting him survey her tip to toe, his gaze brazen and insulting. She doesn't even blink, as she continues, blithe and dismissive. "Our fleet is bigger than _Greyjoy's_." Karstark's neck turns pink, and Robb swallows a smile.

God, she's a _bitch_ , isn't she?

Spitfire, _incandescent_ , a fucking hurricane.

"And none of that matters," she says, to Robb now. "If we can't secure right of passage through Martell waters."

Robb folds his arms over his chest, an amused smile turning up the corners of his lips. "But you have a plan for that too, don't you?"

Margaery looks at him curiously, her grey eyes clear of intrigue and secrets for now, the profile of her heart-shaped face jagged in this light, cast in darkness and golden light, rippling in uncertainty.

"Yes," she says simply, a thin shoulder rising up and down in a graceful, singular movement. "I do."

The memory of her mouth, moving so sweetly, hungrily, under his, is like fire, gilt-edged and bathed in light. But Lord Karstark is watching them, Lord Karstark and all his men, and all her bannermen too, and so Robb only smiles when Grey Wind pads down to wind himself around her waist, nuzzling at her shoulder, tail curving around the underside of her breasts. Margaery’s lips curl up into a smile, eyes dropping to his mouth before flickering away, and she leaves the dinner hall straight-backed and proud, a princess by name, but a Queen even without a crown. 

Robb follows her path until she disappears into the shadows, and he does not go after her, does not even smile, for all that his body is taut with suppressed tension and his eyes burn brighter than wildfire.

He does nothing at all.

* * *

 

 

**xi.**

“The Mountain’s missing.”

Olenna scowls at Lord Bolton's ranger, setting down her wine and hunching forward, and beside her, even Petyr shifts in his seat.

The air in the tent has long turned stale, thick with smoke and incense and sweat, and even the cold, clean air of the riverlands has not been enough to clear it away. Their camp is hours north from Harrenhal, along a fork of the Trident, buttressed on one side by thick forest growth, that slopes up into gently rolling hills, and on the other by the river itself.

“What do you mean, he’s ‘missing’?"

“He’s not there, milady,” the Northerner reports, grim-faced and exhausted. “We looked and waited, the lot of us, we did. Covered every cliff for miles around. Either 'e’s 'idden hisself away inside the castle proper, or- well.” He shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe he’s become a ghost.” The scout scratches a long, brown scab along the side of his face. “I hear they’ve go’ a lot of those, in Harrenhal.” 

“The Mountain can’t _leave_ Harrenhal,” Petyr murmurs, contemplative. “Tywin Lannister would have his _head_ , for dereliction." He meets Olenna's gaze, lips downturned, a worried cast to his charming, weathered face. "This is… strange.”

Olenna grunts in agreement, waving the scout off. “Right, well. On you go, boy. Get yourself some wine and a wash. It seems Lord Baelish and I have a lot to discuss."

* * *

 

“Harrenhal is impregnable,” Loras mutters moodily, staring at the map of the Riverlands laid across the table, the Trident inked in a line of blue as bright as the sapphires of Tarth. 

“Indeed, Ser Loras,” Littlefinger agrees, toadily, his voice all silk and smoothness, and Olenna barely refrains from rolling her eyes. "If we want the castle,” he continues, “we’ll have to draw them out - fight them on an open field.” 

“The Lannister soldiers aren’t fools, Littlefinger,” Olenna cuts in, tired beyond belief. “They aren’t going to leave an impregnable bloody fortress, no matter how much they like waving around their swords.” 

Loras colors briefly, at his Grandmother’s choice of words, and Olenna hides her smiles at the rim of her winecup. _Boys,_ she muses. _Boys and their stupid, bloody swords._

“How then?” Loras asks, embarassment morphing into irritable fury quicker than a blink of an eye, fists thudding onto the table, his back hunched over the map, brow creased with a mutinous scowl. He looks, Olenna thinks, like a boy who’s had his pudding taken away. “How do we draw them out?”

Petyr smiles, an oily little curl of his lips. “We make it worth their while. My lord.”

Only Olenna notes the gleam in his eye, the pause before he adds the honorific, and imperceptibly, she tenses, her dark, beady eyes never moving from him, as the tent flaps fly open and Lord Bolton strides in, the lines drawn deeper than ever in his cold, handsome face.

“My lords, my lady,” he mutters, eyes focused on Olenna. He’s a smart one, this Bolton. Olenna wonders how she hasn’t heard of him before. "News from the last of the scouts,” he reports. “Tywin Lannister is riding to Harrenhal from the south. He’ll be at the castle gates by sundown.” 

The sun is already low in the sky, gold streaking through the horizon, setting the heavens aflame.

“Good,” Olenna remarks, and drains the rest of her wine. “Loras, my boy,” she says, turning to her darling, _dearly_ useless grandson, and wishes, not for the first time, that Margaery were here. “Choose your outriders. Before he reaches the keep, you will take Tywin Lannister.” 

* * *

 

 

**xii.**

They outnumber the Lannisters two to one.  
They’ve taken the Westerlands, and each House that once bowed to the Lannisters bends the knee for King Robb, and accepts his sovereignty. 

From the east comes further news - some of the prisoners escaped during the battle, but Harrenhal has fallen. Tywin Lannister is held prisoner. The Riverlands are safe. 

Reach, River, Rock, all held by an alliance of Tyrell, Tully and Stark.  
Dorne and Eyrie, declaring their neutrality and barring their gates.

Five kingdoms standing.  
One kingdom to fall.

For the boy king Joffrey, in his red castle atop Aegon’s Hill, now… There is nowhere he can run.

* * *

 

“There’s a ship at Lannisport,” the messenger gasps, red in the face, bursting into the King’s council chambers, sweat streaking freely down his forehead before his eyes widen, and he stutters out a rambling apology as he takes in his exalted, if surprised, audience - King Robb, Dowager Queen Catelyn, Princess Margaery, Lords Cerwyn, Umber and Karstark of the North, Lords Westerling and Crakehall of the Westerlands, sons of Tyrell bannerman alongside the Mormont girls.

“What did you expect? It’s a _port_ , boy,” Greatjon Umber drawls, mockingly. “You look like you’ve seen a dragon, not a bloody boat.”

“No, it’s- it’s-“ His eyes flit wildly between the King and his councillors, turning tomato-red in the face, sweat tracking through the grime on his face.

“Speak up, man,” Robb commands, but there’s an undercurrent of gentle laughter in his voice, and the pageboy smiles gratefully, rallying once more.

“It’s from- That is, the ship- It’s from Dorne, y’grace. They’re flying Martell sails.”

And Robb watches a brilliant smile dawn on Margaery Tyrell’s face, as she rises from her seat, clasping her hands together, and exclaiming, “He’s early!”

“Who is?” Mother asks, softly, and Robb could kiss her, he’s so grateful. His throat feels drier than he’s imagined the Red Waste could be.

Margaery Tyrell levels the lethal force of her smile at Mother - it has no effect on the ice crackling from Lady Catelyn, radiating from her in viscerally cold waves of displeasure.

“Why, Prince Oberyn, of course,” Margaery remarks, lightly, as if she hasn’t just stunned the council into gaping silence. “And, if we're lucky, he's brought Ser Davos Seaworth.”

“Princess,” Robb murmurs softly, _too_ softly, and Maege Mormont watches the way he speaks with hard, narrow eyes. But his own eyes are reserved for Margaery alone, her sly-bright gaze, the way she seems to _glow_ in the morning light. “What have you done?”

Margaery flashes him a smirk, and Robb hates the way his heart seems to skip an uncomfortable beat. If she knew the power she had over him…

It’d mean the end of his reign, Robb knows. For her, he’d…

He’d do _unspeakable_ things.

She can _never_ know.

“Why, your grace, I’ve made a friend. Would you like to meet him?”

* * *

 

Her gown is obscene, a Highgarden cut that slashes down to her navel, and Robb shoves it off her shoulders blindly, taking her mouth in hard, desperate kisses, burying his hands in her hair, down the naked dip of her spine. When she tears her mouth away from him, to suck in a trembling breath, his hands turn south, cupping her sweet, perfect tits, rubbing his thumb against her hard, velvety nipples, the areola puckering to a dark rose, as she gasps, and arches closer, a low, breathless laugh on her lips. 

“You approve, then?” she gasps, between kisses.

Outside the windows, night has drawn its curtains over the Westerlands, blanketing the world in starlit darkness. The feast belowstairs roars on, wine flowing freely courtesy of their new Southron friends, and the minstrels play their baudiest songs, all while the Westerlander whores ply their trade to resounding success.

Robb grins back, eyes dark, his smile wolfish, picking her up and depositing her on the table, sweeping figurines and parchment and inkstands in a careless flourish, and Margaery tugs impatiently at the laces of his trousers, dragging him closer, fisting her fingers at his nape, for hurried, impatient kisses, soft tits crushed to him, rubbing her nipples against his hard chest, shoving up her skirts like a Lysene whore, to writhe her hot cunt against the bulge of his cock.

Robb gives into a pained chuckle, whispering, “Yes, princess, I approve,” hands descending to the swell of her bottom, dragging her to the edge of the table, nosing behind her ear, where the skin is pale, fragile, pink, as he rocks into her with sharp, deliberate thrusts, and her low, panting moan echoes through the room.

“We meet Stannis’ fleet at-“

“-Dragonstone,” he hisses, “yes, yes. Tomorrow the Stormlands, the day after, the capital.”

Again, he rocks forward, harder now, teeth sinking into her shoulder, the heat of her leaching through the barrier of their smallclothes, smearing the front of his trousers with slick wetness.

"Off," she gasps, wrenching away from him, shoving the last layer of cloth away, "Off, come on, I need you _inside me-"_ as Robb snaps her wrists in his hand, his cock released from the confines of his smalls, dark with blood, leaking at the head, and Margaery looks up at him, mouth twisted in a impatient snarl, her cheeks red, her hair tumbling in loose, dark waves.

 _"What,"_ she starts to say, but he interrupts, and his voice is a growl, as deep as Grey Wind's, when he asks, "Is this your first time?"

And Margaery almost laughs, hands struggling to escape his grip, her thighs slick with arousal, her breath coming in hard pants. _What does it matter, gods, what does it matter if he isn't her first?_ His grip on her tightens, even as he stumbles forward, and she slips off the edge of the table a little more, splaying her legs in wanton invitation. A gasp flies from her when the head of his cock brushes her aching, parted slit, and _gods, gods, she's never been so empty, she'll take anything inside her, anything, his fingers, his tongue, his cock-_

"Please," she says, struggling, her hands crushed right above his heart, fresh bruises blooming around her wrists, her spine arched, breasts gleaming with sweat as she watches him, soft lips and blue eyes and dark hair all mussed, and she _wants,_ she just _wants-_

 _"Please,"_ she keens, and he swallows the rest of her pleas in his mouth, when he kisses her again, his free hand forcing her mouth open roughly, tongue delving into her, all teeth and fervor, pinching a hard nipple until she cries out and shudders, stroking the soft skin at the underside of her tits, rubbing circles around her clit. The callouses of his hand catch on her burning, fragile skin, and Margaery writhes against the heel of her palm when he grinds it against her clit, whimpering, his cock against her thigh, smearing trails of wetness along her skin.

* * *

 

 

**xiii.**

Arya watches Harrenhal recede into the distance, smoke from the battle curling into the night air, marring its velvety darkness. The stench of fire, of death, and the screams of soldiers littering the eastern front of Harren’s fields, still ring on the wind, piercing and hollow, and Arya instinctively wraps her arms tighter around Gendry’s waist, tucking her face between his shoulder-blades, breathing his familiar scent and squeezing her eyes closed.

Needle hangs at her waist. Hot Pie is alive. And Jaqen H’ghar has promised her three lives.

She’s safe.

Gendry’s safe.

Nothing else matters.

* * *

 

Atop the burnt, cragged towers of Harrenhal, a new banner flutters.

The flayed man, upon his cross.

In its chambers, Lord Tywin Lannister breaks bread with Roose Bolton and Walder Frey the Younger.

* * *

 

 

There has been a change in loyalty.

Petyr Baelish is nowhere to be found.

* * *

 

There’s a banging on Robb’s door, like thunder, and Margaery’s hands still, even as the blood roars in his ears, delirious with wanting her-

“Go,” she whispers, shakily, even though her fingers tighten briefly on the back of his neck, as if she won’t bear it if he steps away. “Go, you have to-“

“I don’t have to. I’m their king,” he snaps, and wonders when this bloody crown is going to be of any use to _him._ “They can damn well wait.”

Margaery laughs, high and airless, and _shoves_ him away. “Go, go, see what it is,” she whispers, drawing his cloak around her shoulders, from where it lay discarded on the table. “I’ll be here.”

Robb shakes his head at her, running his hands through his hair. He turns to the door, tugging up his breeches with a hiss of pain, as his hands graze his cock, sending a bolt of acutely harsh sensation jolting down his spine.

THe knocking grows louder, more urgent, and there’s a muffled sound of someone screaming for him to unbolt the door.

* * *

 

_“They betrayed us!” Karstark roars, scroll clenched in one fist, purple with fury as he advances upon his own king. “The Freys! The Boltons! They’ve destroyed half of our army, and taken Harrenhal, and taken back Jaime! Fucking! Lannister!”_

* * *

 

**xiv.**

"You need to go now, Grandmother," Loras says, armor gleaming dully in the early light of dawn. The cries of the dying ring out across the battlefield, and overhead, crows circle in ever-closing ellipses, hungry for their festering meal. They managed to get out at least two ravens safely - Robb Stark will send reinforcements soon enough, but now there's only Loras left, a few thousand others. 

They will face the Freys on one side, the traitorous bastards, and Lannisters on the other, well ahead of any help.

Their enemy has them in a chokehold, and slowly, it closes in on them. There is no escape.

"Come with me," Olenna says, softly. "You _must_ come with me."

"I must _not_ ," Loras counters, his voice steady even though she can see how white his fingers are, clamped around his sword belt. With his hair brushed back, his fair face glowing with determination, Olenna knows the boy looks rather like a hero from a song. 

If you ignore the way the armor is caked with mud and human viscera.   
The dark bags under his eyes, the drying blood on his lip where it has split.  
The purpling bruise blooming across his jaw, black at its heart and faintly green around the edges.

He looks like a hero, her boy does.   
It was the last thing she's ever wanted from him.

 

Heroes, after all, die.

 

"It will be _slaughter,_ Loras, you daft boy!" Olenna fairly snarls. "You _cannot_ think to-!"

"Grandmother," Loras interrupts, and he's almost smiling. "Don't you think I know that?"

Olenna pauses. 

"Then... why?"

"I know you think I'm stupid," he begins slowly, considering his words. He shifts so he may look out the tent, watch his men straggle back into readiness, lieutenants barking orders at their men, Mercy Men cutting open the throats of those dying soldiers that cannot be saved.

"I do _not-"_ Olenna hurries to counter, and Loras cuts in wryly, saying, "Yes, you do."

"And that's alright. I'm not smart, not like you or Margaery. You've both learned how to be clever and witty and all that, and that's well and good, Grandmama, but it isn't for me." He gestures out to the battlefield. "This is who I am. A knight. A solider. This is where I belong. With my men, leading them into battle."

"Oh, _Loras,_ no..."

"I don't want you to-" He turns back to her, hesitant, shy in a way he never has been before. "I know I'm going to die today. But I swore a vow, and I mean to uphold it. When Tywin Lannister returns, I'm going to give him a fight he won't forget. I'm going to slaughter his men and burn his armies and _rue the bloody day-"_

He breaks off once more, head dropping down as he chuckles, low and dark. "I have to do this, don't you see? I have to do this for Renly."

"You... You loved him."

"More than anything," Loras agrees, with simple, heart-breaking sincerity. "Tell Margaery I love her. Tell Father I'm sorry. Tell Robb he has my blessing."

"Your _blessing?_ Whatever for?"

Loras grins, snaps on his helm, leaving the visor up. "He'll know. Go now, Grandmother. I can give them a fight, but I can't keep you safe as well. I won't have you on my conscience too."

He opens the tent flap wider, reconsiders, and goes back to Olenna's side. He drops to a knee, taking a small, heavily ringed hand in his, and presses a kiss on her tiny, fragile knuckles, closing his eyes when a trmebling hand cups his jaw, the only skin left exposed through all his armor. 

"I must go," he says quietly, and makes no move to leave.

"Know this, then. Know that you are loved, my boy, that you have always been so _very_ loved. And know that I will always, _always_ be proud of the man you have become."

When his shoulders tremble, and Olenna feels hot tears drip against her fingers, she says nothing.

What is left to say, when you send your own children to war?

* * *

 

**xv.**

They might have kingdoms under their grasp, and alliances, and powerful friends, but all the gold and swords in the world can't keep her children safe, and when Theon turns on them, and burns down their home, naming himself Prince of Winterfell, there is nothing Catelyn can do. 

“You cannot,” Robb urges, fear like acid in his belly. “Please, Mother-“

“I have to go to Winterfell. I have to speak with Theon, this is not _like_ him, Robb!”

 _“No,”_ Robb hisses, blue eyes shuttering cold and dead. “I should have listened to you from the beginning. All I need from Theon Greyjoy now is his _head.”_

“Where, then?” Catelyn snaps back. “I can’t go North. The Riverlands? Oh no, Tywin _Lannister_ holds them. Stay here? The Westerlands might turn the moment we le-“

“The Eyrie.”

“What?”

“Aunt Lysa- I know they’re neutral, but she’s your _sister._ She would never turn you away. Mother, please, I cannot fight this war while I fear for you.”

“Robb…”

“ _Please,_ Mother. _Please.”_

He looks young then, so heartbreakingly young, not even as old as Ned had been when Robert Baratheon had dragged him into a war of kings. His eyes are soft, the blue of the summer sky of her childhood, and to him, this time, she cannot say no.

* * *

"My brother loved him!" she hisses back, her grip around the knife's hilt so tight her knuckles have turned white. The last message lies unfurled on the table behind her.

Loras is dead. Olenna has escaped.

"He _loved_ Renly, and they took him away!"

“Margaery," Robb begins to say, stepping towards her, his face limned in fire and gold, hair still dripping with rain into his eyes. Around them, the low rush of the storm fills the air, the stench of salt and lightning almost overpowering in the cabins of the Silver Lady, the head of the Redwyne fleet that carries them ever closer to Dragonstone.

“No," she spits, all her petals gone. All her thorns on display. "No, _you_ listen to me," she demands, knife upraised. She walks up to him, and rests the point on his chest, the tip slowly cutting through his shirt, a dot of red blooming onto the cloth. "If you think I will _rest_ ," she vows, "before Tywin Lannister and his bastard _burn_ for what he did to Loras, if you think I'll _stop_ before I have torn out that family by its bloody root-"

"You think I don't know that?" he snarls back, wrapping his hand around the hilt, letting the knife dig deeper yet. “I'll _kill_ them. I'll take the capitol, and get my sisters back, and when it's done, I will burn the _hearts_ out of them all."

The knife clatters out of her grip, and to the ground. Robb wrenches her body to his, crushed against his chest, cupping the back of her neck, her hair like silk trapped in his fingers. 

When she kisses him then, he knows he has her. He has a _Queen_. 

_Finally._

* * *

_to be continued_

**Author's Note:**

> chapter titles from 'flares,' by the script.  
> bless you for coming this far in the greatest trashpost i've ever written. if you liked it, hit kudos, my dude. i need the validation much, much more than i ought to. 
> 
> hit me up on tumblr @dropofrum.


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